Israel's offensive

Senseless in Gaza

Israel is insisting that Operation Days of Penitence, its latest incursion into the Gaza Strip, is needed to protect its territory from the Palestinian rockets which killed two toddlers in the southern town of Sderot last week. But the scale of the offensive, the largest since the reoccupation of much of the West Bank in 2002, poses disturbing questions about the intentions of Ariel Sharon's government. According to independent reports, some 68 Palestinians, fighters and civilians, have been killed in six days of fighting, many around the sprawling Jabaliya refugee camp, where the first intifada erupted 17 years ago. Palestinian sources said one of yesterday's victims was a four-year-old child. Two Israeli soldiers and civilians have died. The unequal casualties reflect the unequal strength of the two sides, one armed with sophisticated Apache helicopters, drone-firing missiles and armoured bulldozers, and the other with rudimentary Qassam rockets and small arms, and of course, when they get through Israel's controversial "security fence", suicide bombers.

This is a war, and a brutal and senseless one. The UN refugee agency, Unrwa, has rejected accusations by Israel that its ambulances have been used to transport rockets when the "suspicious" objects were in fact stretchers. And there is evidence that Gaza's already rickety infrastructure is being deliberately targeted, with thousands of Palestinians trapped for days without access to hospitals, power or water after electricity generators and sewage pipes were destroyed by the army. Gaza was a bleak and hopeless place long before the Israelis conquered it it in their lightning military victory in 1967. But 37 long and and bloody years later, things have never been so bad. Prolonged border closures mean that only a few thousand Palestinians are now able to work across the old "green line" border in Israel proper. Unemployment is a staggering 60%, while the PLO the younger General Sharon tried in vain to wipe out in the early 1970s has been supplanted by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Israelis, who are now finally on their way out, should understand that it is not in their interest to make Gaza even more of a basket case than it already is. Mr Sharon's commitment to a unilateral withdrawal has been welcomed by default since the internationally backed "road map" to peace is barely alive. Any return of occupied territory, and the dismantling of settlements which should never have been there, are good things - even if the Likud leader is acting to consolidate Israel's permanent hold on the West Bank with the the irresponsible support of the Bush administration.

Mr Sharon, who faces strong domestic opposition, is clearly determined to avoid the impression that he is being driven out of of Gaza under fire. But Hamas is playing politics and propaganda too by launching its rocket attacks - from within densely populated civilian areas - that it must know will attract massive retaliation by the Israelis.

Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, isolated in his Ramallah HQ - and unwilling or unable to rein in the militants who disdain his crumbling authority - was displaying a familiar reflex action when he called on the international community to stop "inhumane and racist crimes" - a call heeded when the UN security council met to debate the escalating crisis. But his prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, struck a different note when he urged Hamas "to think about the higher national interest and not give Israel excuses to continue the aggression against our people in Gaza". Israel's offensive is likely only to deepen hatred and fuel Palestinian resistance. But a world that is weary of this endless conflict, and distracted by disaster in Iraq, should do more than wring its hands. Both sides must be warned that they have no alternative but to negotiate with each other.

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